Ed Sheeran

by Sara Bimbi

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An English singer-songwriter, after a few successful singles and appearances he played with famous singers and bands and wrote hits for Taylor Swift and One Direction

Ed Sheeran was born on 17 February 1991 in Halifax, UK, into a family in which art and creativity are common, everyday features: his father is an art curator and his mother is a jewerly designer while Ed’s brother is a classical music composer; it comes as no surprise, then, that he started to play the guitar and write songs when very young. In 2005 he put out his first EP called The Orange Room, three years later he moved to London and started getting some visibility with his live shows and taking part in TV seriesBritannia High. The year 2009 was truly rewarding: he toured with Just Jack, one of the biggest performers on the British hip-hop scene, while rapper Example chose him to go on tour with him.

Ed also published his second independent album, Loose Change. In spring 2010 he decided to fly to Los Angeles. Thanks to his live gigs around California, ha was noticed by US singer and actor Jamie Foxx. Ed owes an important part of his success to word of mouth on the Internet; and the web is the key of the success of his last indie EP,No.5 Collaboration Projects, that reached, without the help of labels or sponsors, top positions in the charts. The success on the web did not distract him from the close and direct interaction with the audience: on 12 April 2011 he organized in a London club a free gig that was attended by about a thousand people; and lo let everyone see it, Ed played the show for as many as four times. Shortly after, he signed his first contract with Asylum Records and Atlantic Records. The moment when his fame exploded was getting near: in April 2011 he took part in a TV show performing The A team, the debut single from his first studio album, titled +. The track reached the top three in the British charts and was the biggest selling debut single of 2011. Sheeran became a hit also in Europe.

He boasts successful collaborations with One Direction (he wrote three songs for them) and with Taylor Swift, with whom he went on tour in 2013 as an opening act. Also his official apparitions are very important: he performed for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in June 2012 and sang Wish You Were Here by The Pink Floyd at the closing ceremony of The Olympic Games in that same year. His look has remained very simple, and it is important to see that he appears only briefly in his music videos. He said he wants to leave space to music and to the stories it tells choosing original ways to interact with the characters of his videos. For instance Lego House starsRupert Grint (Ron in Harry Potter), chosen becausethey look alike and, as the singer has declared, they are often mistaken for one another. One of his recent videos, Sing, is very original and the result of a collaboration with Pharrell Williams, as we see him interacting with an alter ego made of fabric and tries his hand with more electronic sounds, far from the acoustic genre his public is used to.

This is a proof of his ability to experiment, successfully, with new sounds. Two of his tracks became part of successful film soundtracks: I see fire for The Hobbit and All of the Stars for The Fault in Our Stars. It is also important to highlight his humanitarian commitment: the inspiration for The A team came after he met a homeless girl, Angela, who told him her story. In the video there is, in fact, a girl who lives rough in the streets and sells her body to buy crack. Ed raised funds to support a charitable organization that assists prostitutes and offers them shelter.